Confusion about soundhole pickups

[ksdaddy]

Okay, so I've diddled around trying many different strings on an archtop. Flats are nice and quiet and smooth but I just can't get any life out of them. I guess as a guitarist (using the term loosely) I like to have a little ring.

 

I do like bronze or PB on it and I would probably like them even more if I gave them a chance to break in. But then it's awful if I plug in. The bronze obviously doesn't work well with pickups. So I switch back and forth and I'm basically never satisfied.

 

I pondered this yesterday and I recalled in the 80s we used soundhole pickups a lot. Shadow, Schaller, Dean Markely, etc. I thought they sounded fine. And for that matter we used those chrome DeArmonds before that. I had a chrome DeArmond with roller volume control in my Japanese Gamma Martin looking thing in the 70s that I paid $50 for (guitar WITH pickup!). That pickup would pay for any number of mid level Pac Rim dreadnaughts nowadays, which I think is a little silly.

 

I know we've come a long way with amplification of acoustics but those soundhole pickups worked and worked well IMHO. So how in the world did they work so well with bronze strings? Was there something different about the way they were wound or is my memory just playing tricks on me?

 

Side note, I ordered a set of DR Zebras to try on it. Apparently they are a roundwound with alternating nickel and bronze windings. I'm skeptical but I'll give them a shot. I've nver been one for 'compromise' strings, half rounds, ground round wounds, etc. Seems like those compromise strings end up doing NEITHER side any justice. But I'll give them a shot. These are supposed to sound bronze-ish but also have enough steel to agitage the pickup.

[Twang Gang]

Ever try Elixir nanoweb? They have a nice bright sound and last a realy long time. I use them with a Taylor that has a B-Band system in it and they sound good through that. Have also used them with a Dean Markley soundhole pickup and no problems. Of course acceptable tone is up to each individual so what I think sounds fine you might not like at all.

[kidblast]

KS Daddy,,

 

a few questions.

 

What is the pickup you are using? assuming under the saddle transducer (piezo?) and there's no eq or preamp?

 

Also not clear what you are plugging this into? A regular guitar amp? a PA set up? and acoustic amp?

 

If you are going into a guitar amp, those are really not voiced well for an acoustic guitar sound, in fact, that is going to sound like dog pooh most of the time.

 

I've got 3 acoustics they sound very much like "acoustic" guitars sound, just louder. Strings really don't matter, I think it's what you are using when you "plug" that bad boy in.

 

I have a yamaha AG Stomp that I use playing live that goes straight to the board, I also have a Fender Acoustasonic amp.

 

both give me a very natural acoustic sound. In a pinch you can also just use a 7 or 10 band EQ into a sound board.

 

the sound hole pickups are okay but, I find they are always in the way. (well at least the ones I've tried - the duncan tube and the dean markley pro mag. But all things considered, once you go into something with the proper equing/tone characteristics -... They are not by any means superior to say a Fishman Matrix, or something similar where the pickup is a transducer ribbon sitting under the saddle.

 

So really, what are your details?

[Markini]

I still use a single coil Dean Markley sound hole mount on one of my Hummys. It does the job, sounds good and records quite nicely. I use Elixer nanowebs on all my acoustics.

[ksdaddy]

This is a Heritage archtop with the stock issue pickguard mounted humbucker. Plugging into a regular guitar amp. So you can see why bronze strings wouldn't quite cut it.

[kidblast]

This is a Heritage archtop with the stock issue pickguard mounted humbucker. Plugging into a regular guitar amp. So you can see why bronze strings wouldn't quite cut it.

 

 

yes - much clearer now!!

[bonzoboy]

Back around 1983 I bought a beautiful Yamaha FG 346 SB Limited Edition in the rare Marine Blueburst which has since faded to fabulous blue-green shade.The guitar sounded so good that I decided to electrify it,I bought a Yamaha soundhole pickup and drilled out the endpin hole to accept the jack for it.The pickup incorporated a humbucker with a very sensitive transducer that worked as good as any high quality acoustic guitar mic the only control on it was a panning pot that panned between the humbucker and transducer so you could dial in one or the other or any combination of blending.There's no model name or number on it just the word Yamaha printed on top of it,I have never seen another one like it and have heard very few that can come close to it for sound reproduction.

[milod]

I'm not sure about all this stuff given some of my excursions...

 

I had a DeArmond Rhythm Chief with a volume/tone control box and a string clamp rod on an old harmony archtop I added a seventh string to (doubled G an octave up) and the pup back around '66-7. I used it in a rock band with "acoustic" strings through my old Fender DR and don't recall problems.

 

http://www.archtop.com/ac_access.html#anchor46177042

 

Back in the 50s and 60s there were quite a few magnetic pups used either as original equipment (Gibson's cf100e is a great example) or added on.

 

OTOH, I started using AEs as soon as Ovation came out with 'em in the early '70s. All of them wear Zebra 9-42 except one that I'm messing with a "buy single strings" Elixir Polyweb 9-42 "acoustic" string setup.

 

That does include the two-pup Epi AJ500me that has a small mag pup as well as the piezo. Sounds very nice to me although some have complained about poor wiring, etc.

 

Right now except as above, my only mag pup on a flattop is just a cheapie on a cheapie 12-string and frankly I don't have problems with it either. Just regular "light" acoustic 12-string strings. Messing with my little Kustom AE amp can get me anything from pretty close to acoustic to close to Rick 12 sorta jangle.

 

So... Have I been that poor hearing tone all these years or is it technique or just different amp settings or...

 

For what it's worth a friend has two Gibson cf100 versions, one with the factory pup and one acoustic-only that he added a Fishman rare earth, I think it was. Both with medium bronze strings sound fine to me - a bit different from each other but still pretty "acoustic" depending on EQ.

 

Edit: I'm experimenting with various flats on a new Gretsch G100ce archtop with a small humbucker attached to the neck - not in the guitar body. Right now 9-42 sound fine both electric and acoustic, but are a little too "loose" on the 25 1/2 scale, IMHO. And you know I am a very gentle fingerpicker so "sound" will be different from some others with different technique.

 

m

[Markini]

One of the nicest sounds I ever heard live came from a 1948 J45 using a clip on microphone and running the line out of the back strap hole. Granted this was in a very small restaurant / bar atmosphere. He was running through an older Shure PA (Towers) system. This was circa 1974.

[zigzag]

How do you like that Gretsch, m? I was thinking about getting one of those last year.

[milod]

Thanks to a note in the forum's "trading post," I got what amounts to a new one and case for good price. The seller said he had two, and wanted to keep the "natural" finish and sold the black.

 

Oddly the store in "the big city" a bit over an hour from here had an order from me to call if they got in an Epi Joe Pass or an Eastman Eastman ar371ce that's basically a copy of a single pup ES175.

 

The store called a month later and thanks to selling something else, I had the cash to end up with both. I could sell the Gretsch or keep it... It's nice but I think I'm a shorter scale guy.

 

The Gretsch has the 25 1/2 scale I can work with, but don't prefer. I like the 16-inch body though, which doesn't feel that much different from the 175. The neck is fine. Quite nice. My action is set very low and I'm messing with light flats that I haven't used since the '60s.

 

Sound... it just sounds like an old archtop with a hb pup glued on. A little woodier than a 175 - or the Eastman that is wearing 9-42 Elixir Polywebs.

 

Unlike some similar archtops with no holes cut for pups or pots, it does have both tone and volume controls which I like because I may be using it for other than strictly a traditional "jazz" piece.

 

Honestly, it's not as comfortable as a 175 to me, but then I tend to like the shorter scale.

 

The tuning pegs are old style but nice and tight. Fine by me.

 

I s'pose you can be critical about the matte finish, but it looks better on stage than you might think. Photo below is an arts council benefit with some old guy using it to do San Francisco Bay Blues.

 

Let's put it this way: It's a quite good beginning jazz box, or a box to use when you don't like the looks of the weather to haul a guitar around and you're basically doing some benefits that ain't paying you for a Gibson.

 

m

[zigzag]

Thanks to a note in the forum's "trading post," I got what amounts to a new one and case for good price. The seller said he had two, and wanted to keep the "natural" finish and sold the black.

 

Yeah, I almost never go into the trading post, but the one time I did I saw, and admired, that Gretsch. I've been looking for a low cost jazz box, and I was considering one. If you're putting on flats, you might consider Thomastik-Infeld Swings. They are low tension strings for their diameter compared to others. But be forewarned; they're a littler deader. Not sure they make 9s.

 

I've also considered a Joe Pass Epi, but I've not heard much good about their quality. (This might be coming from Jazz snobs.) I heard that Eastmans are inconsistent, but good ones are very good.

[milod]

First the Gretsch...

 

I figure for what it is, it's quite good. As the saying goes, it ain't a $5,000 guitar, but then it's worth probably 85-90 percent of one at a heckuva lot less.

 

The Eastman: The one I have is fine. When they called me I had 'em put on Elixir Polywebs 9-42 and that I'd be there in a cupla hours. Then I played it for maybe 45 minutes doing what I do.

 

I'd not claim it's a great guitar, but again, it's quite nice playing and sounding for what it is. I did notice that after I played it in the store the frets were perfect on the side of the neck; now a month or so later you can feel the wood has dried enough that there's a wee bit of fret-feel on the sides of the neck up around the 12th fret. Nothing to cause a problem. That's climate, not guitar, though. The finish/color ain't a big deal regardless, but it's nitro. The color isn't what I'd choose if I had a lotta cash but, then I'd not likely get the little box.

 

Put it this way: It's my "night night" guitar.

 

As for the Joe Pass... I've played on a couple in guitar stores and the did fine. I recall thinking they were a bit "woody" compared to a 175, but that's perhaps the amp, not messing with various settings, etc. I really think it'd have been neat to mess with the Epi version of the 175 and the Joe Pass as a comparison at about the same price point.

 

Now, if I hadda have only one jazz/pop guitar, yeah, it's that old 175 although she doesn't like winter much.

 

But I'd not feel bad at all gigging with either the Gretsch or Eastman that I have.

 

m

[zigzag]

Thanks m.

[stein]

I am feeling this delima, as well as remembering the 80's.

 

I remember that myself, I would actually set up some with strat pups in the soundhole of flat tops, and get use out of them. Worked pretty good, and free to me. But, I also remember the store-bought ones (Promag, etc.) that while they worked better, also didn't work better.

 

I think the standard of what "worked" was different. "Sounding pretty good" was more a matter of having it SOUND like an acoustic, rather than sounding like the accoustic it was used in. I think in the 80's, we were pretty impressed if the rig as a whole gave something resembling the rich full woody sound, and in reality, many DID sound good when taken on it's own merits.

 

I short, they WERE deficient, particularly in the bass, but well worth it, in that a flat-top sounded much more like a flat-top than, say, an electric with 'accoustic' strings on it. I didn't get into it or explore the finer points much beyond that. But, worth considering if I was to go there.

 

Main reason I haven't gone there, basically, for my archtop, its 'electric' strings that I like for it. The whole charm for me regarding the archtop, is that it sounds like the finest electrics, but does it 'accoustic'. It sounds even as though it is plugged in, in a sense. So it usually sports some D'ad 11's, with or without a plain 3rd depending. And when it sports flats, I think the main idea isn't really if I like the guitar better or worse with the flats, it's more of it being the ULTIMATE guitar to put the flats on. Even though flats aren't what I would call bright or woody, it's problably the brightest and woodiest guitar they can go on.

 

Even though 99 times out of 100 I am playing it and using it accoustically, and picking strings for that purpose, It has pups. It's a '61 L-7, but hacked for pups, and the pups are period correct humbuckers. Kind of a no brainer there. Besides feeling rediculasly blessed, there seems to be no end to what I discover the guitar can do. But if I had to do it all over again, (which I plan on if I win the lottery), I would explore an accoustic version with "accoustic" pups.

 

Digressing back to the subject, I think it's a REAL delima, in that, we are talking about a top-notch archtop here, I assume, in the Heritage. Comprimising on strings or string type is the opposite of what the guitar was meant for, and I can see the reluctance. But then again, I can easily see where brass or bronze strings would really suck when used with what essentailly would be, or should be, a good pup.

 

Reading with interest.

[milod]

Stein...

 

I think you have a very going point about expectations. "We" expected something different in 1965 than is expected today.

 

I never expected that old archtop - or flattops - with mag pups on them to sound exactly like it did acoustic when I plugged it in. In fact, that ability to slide the pup to various positions between the bridge and neck added to the potential of getting different tone "control" as well as with the pot.

 

OTOH, I never felt that, or my friend's old Gibbies, had problems with bass or much of anything else. It was different, and with bronze strings required more on the volume, but... that was the expectation that it would sound different as opposed to a studio mike with a full acoustic.

 

"We" probably really had our heads challenged, then, when we got the under saddle piezo outfits of one sort or another in the '70s. Regardless of later complaints, it did sound a lot more like an acoustic as opposed to "electric" guitar.

 

For what it's worth, that archtop site I noted above does also have under bridge piezos that could do roughly the same thing as the flattop under bridge units.

 

Then again, "we" encounter the "well, what does it reeeeeally sound like."

 

I guess I never expected my archtops to sound acoustic anyway. In the olden days of wax recording and the later early radio mikes, the archtops put out heavy thumping midtone rhythm. It wasn't until later that they were electrified and, IMHO, sounded like electric guitars instead of miked acoustics.

 

We hear solidbody pickers talk about how they may make a decision on a guitar by how it sounds acoustically which I can sorta, but not really understand, but then again I only have one solidbody, excluding basses.

 

I think if you have an electric archtop, you've probably gotta think of it as an electric archtop and match it with strings you're comfortable with and proper pup setup and pot "compensation."

 

With a mag pup on it, even aftermarket, in today's world you're probably going to have to figure it's an electric archtop. So there, it's ditto with "electric guitar."

 

If you have an acoustic sound with given strings, technique and etc., I think it's either a piezo or a good mike - not a mag pup regardless of quality.

 

Yeah, one argument especially for a floating pup on an archtop is to get more of the wood resonance to return through the strings, etc... It's still a magnet and coil being affected by strings, not a reproduction of a wood reflecting resonance of strings plus the strings themselves that you hear in an acoustic.

 

Ditto but in reverse with a piezo regardless of claims that may have more or less value. That's one reason for efforts to have multiple sorts of units to catch vibration both of string, wood - even air - for acoustic guitars.

 

So... I dunno. The early jazz guitars ended up with flats because they responded fairly well to mag pups and were fairly mellow in an era of bebop and cool school jazz, pop and rock. The mag pups and amps of the time were kinda a combination of an alto sax and clarinet sound through the early simple tube amps.

 

It fit with the music. The later additions and messing with "tone" from Link Wray through the expansion of the pedal gadgetry industry brought expectations both for "pure" and "dirty" sounds that... I guess I'd have to say are awfully subjective whether they're nice sounding or not just as "dirty trumpet" may or may not be appealing.

 

Thing is... I hate to admit this, but I'm not really sure what it is the OP, our erstwhile mod and fellow guitar nut, expects... what's really falling short of that expectation... and then how to find it. I don't think any strings on a mag pup will sound like another set of strings played acoustically...

 

m

[retrosurfer1959]

Interesting post and lot's of options already talked about, I also use nanowebs on my AE and straight acoustics. They seem to be a good combination of feel and tone and they do last longer and seem to have a good tone for longer than most other strings Ive tried. One of the things I do is decide what sound I really want and then I match the strings to that. It all started with my Taylor T5 which I play a lot if my doing coffee shop and or hotel bar type of gigs and one of the things I found on it is if I want an electric sound I use electric guitar strings and if the songs I'm doing require more of an acoustic sound then I string the T5 with acoustic guitar strings I also push the guitar through the Taylor K4 preamp/equalizer and it can really make the expression system sing through a split system using a acoustic amp and then an electric amp. Even though that guitar is made to be more of a crossover Ive found the same thing to work on other guitars and when I want a softer more acoustic sound from archtops and semi hollow-bodies I string them with acoustic guitar strings and get a different and more mellow sound. This work really well on my Gretsch Brian Setzer when i want to dial back the twang.

[L5Larry]

Thing is... I hate to admit this, but I'm not really sure what it is the OP, our erstwhile mod and fellow guitar nut, expects... what's really falling short of that expectation...

 

It seems to me that the point of the original question is that he wants an archtop to sound like a flattop. It won't, whatever you do.

 

This seems to be very typical of flattop players that stray over to the "dark side" of archtops, and many times the sound that they're trying to change is what an archtop is supposed to sound like.

[jdgm]

My old Shadow soundhole pickup still works great but Kidblast is right on the money with the comment about amps being voiced for electric. Piezos need a preamp and careful eq IMO.

 

I also have an archtop with Schaller Golden 50 pickups which are a bit microphonic and it sounds wonderful with Thomastik tapewound strings, like a huge acoustic guitar (f-hole, not flat-top). This is through a Fender Super 60. Go figure!